About the Talk

From the 1970s onwards, in nation-building, post-colonial Southeast Asia, a handful of visual artists have used their art to promote social progress. They have prompted audiences’ critical social thinking by creating a wide variety of artworks, including those that involved physical experiences, that utilize irony and humor, and that are experienced in ordinary environments such as on the street. By examining contemporary artworks from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, and the Philippines, this lecture shows the mechanics and appeal of socially-engaged aesthetic innovation, and argues this methodology of public invitation and intervention as a central trait of contemporary art in Southeast Asia.
Venue: Tokioka Room, Moore Hall 319. See below for map.

About the Speaker: Iola Lenzi

Lenzi is a Singapore-based curator, lecturer, and critic specializing in contemporary arts of Southeast Asia. She is author of Museums of Southeast Asia (2005), and has curated exhibitions in in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bangkok. She serves as lecturer for the Asian Art Histories MA program at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, and as regional correspondent for Asian Art, London.